The Autonomy of the South-East European Copper Age

1970 ◽  
Vol 35 ◽  
pp. 12-47 ◽  
Author(s):  
Colin Renfrew
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Essential Elements ◽  
Western Mediterranean ◽  
The South ◽  
East European ◽  
Great Achievement ◽  
Absolute Dating ◽  
The Absolute ◽  
The Many ◽  
The One

Ten years have now elapsed since the death of V. Gordon Childe, whose great achievement it was to relate the many disparate elements of European prehistory into a single coherent whole. These ten years have seen not only the sustained application of radiocarbon dating to the south-east European Neolithic (Quitta, 1967; Kohl and Quitta, 1966), but the publication of important stratigraphic sequences, especially that of the great tell at Karanovo in Bulgaria (Georgiev, 1961). Both these advances put in question one of the essential elements in Childe's structure for the chronology of Europe: the chronological equation between Troy I and the Vinča culture of Jugoslavia (Childe, 1929, 32; 1927; 1939).This is the cornerstone for the Neolithic and Early Bronze Age of much of Europe, and to remove it would cause widespread changes both in chronology and culture history.The crucial importance of this point has been well expressed by Professor Clark (1938): ‘Thanks to the synchronisms established between Troy and Iberia and the western Mediterranean on the one hand, and central and northern Europe on the other, any important alterations in the absolute dating of the successive “cities” is bound to affect the dating of every culture in Europe of the period, much in the same way as fluctuations in the price of certain key commodities are felt in the exchanges of the whole world’. Today, of course, it is not so much the absolute dating of Troy which is in question, but the synchronisms with Europe: the effect, however, is the same.

scholarly journals Topical issues in the study of the early Aeneolithic of the Don forest-steppe (chronology, periodization, synchronization)

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 215-220
Author(s):  
Andrey Mikhailovich Skorobogatov
Keyword(s):  
Forest Steppe ◽  
Stone Age ◽  
East European ◽  
Relevant Today ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Absolute Dating ◽  
The Absolute ◽  
Tripolye Culture

For a long time, the Eneolithic of the Don forest-steppe remained one of the least studied epochs in the archaeological scheme of the region. However, since the late 1960s, sites with materials of the Eneolithic have been actively explored on the territory of the Voronezh and Lipetsk Regions. By the 1980s, researchers had a concept for the development of copper-stone age cultures within the system of the Mariupol cultural-historical region of the Dnieper-Don-Ural interfluve, which is still relevant today. The criteria for distinguishing the Eneolithic era in the steppe and forest-steppe spaces of the East European steppe and forest-steppe were substantiated. The idea of their synchronization with complexes of the Tripolye A period was designated. The early Eneolithic in the Don forest-steppe was marked by the appearance of a population with specific ceramics of Nizhnedonskaya culture. Questions of the chronology of the early Eneolithic were solved exclusively by methods of analogies with the materials of neighboring territories and synchronization with the local Neolithic complexes. The paper deals with the problems of chronology, periodization and synchronization of materials from the early Aeneolithic of the territory of the Don forest-steppe. The focus is on the absolute dating of the Nizhnedonskaya culture of the Mariupol cultural-historical region and its synchronization with the early Tripolye Culture. According to all the data available to date, the regions early Eneolithic can be dated from 5300 to 4250 BC.

Monismus und Dualismus in Platons Prinzipienlehre

1997 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 1-21 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jens Halfwassen
Keyword(s):  
The Absolute ◽  
The Many ◽  
The One

Abstract One of the main problems of Plato's unwritten doctrine has to do with whether his theory of principles has a strictly dualistic or rather a more monistic character. The thesis of this essay is that Plato combines monism and dualism in a particular fashion. Both the dialogues and the testimony of the unwritten doctrine reveal that in Plato's metaphysics the One is the genuinely absolute principle; Plato's second principle, the Many, is not a second absolute - otherwise it would dissolve the very concept of the absolute. Instead, Plato conceives the principle of multiplicity itself as a unity, therefore as in some - in any event ineffable - way as being derived or having emanated from the absolute One. The One itself is wholly transcendent and thus ineffable, knowable neither by reason nor by intellective intuition. Nonetheless, being and knowledge are constituted by the coordination of the One and the Many, for which reason the latter is a principle. Hence, Plato's metaphysics combine a monistic ascent to the absolute with a dualistic derivation of being, a combination made necessary because the One transcends not only all being, but also all knowledge.

Maiden Castle: excavation, education, entertainment?

Antiquity ◽  
1985 ◽  
Vol 59 (226) ◽  
pp. 97-100 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. J. Wainwright ◽  
B. W. Cunliffe
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Iron Age ◽  
The South ◽  
The West ◽  
South Side ◽  
South West ◽  
The One ◽  
Great Complexity

In its developed or final form Maiden Castle, some two miles (3.2 km) south-west of Dorchester in Dorset, is an iron age hillfort, of great complexity, which takes in two knolls of a saddle-backed spur of Upper Chalk, the highest point of which is about 440 ft (c.134 m) above OD. The defences enclose47 acres (c.18 ha) and consist of three banks and two ditches with an additional bank inserted along most of the south side. There are two entrances, at the east and at the west, each with double openings elaborately defended by outworks. The outstandingly imposing character of Maiden Castle is derived from the size and complexity of these earthwork defences rather than from its altitude or the natural defensive advantages of its position. Ptolemy has been thought to supply a hint as to the ancient name of Maiden Castle. The conventional identification of Roman Dnrchester is with theDurnovaniaof the Antonine Itinerary. Ptolemy omits that placename, but mentionsDuniumin the same region as the one city apparently worthy of mention in the territory of the Durotriges (GeographiaI, 103, ed. C Müller (1883)).Duniumwas long ago identified with Maiden Castle. This may well be so, although recently Hod Hill and Hengistbury have also been put forward as possibilities. Part of the hillfort lies on the site of a neolithic causewayed enclosure and it also surrounds a unique ‘long-mound’ of the same period, a bronze age round barrow and the foundations of a Romano-British temple and accompanying buildings.

scholarly journals Geophysical Investigations of the Bronze Age Andreevskoye Settlement in the Southern Trans-Urals (Russia)

2020 ◽  
Vol XI (2) ◽  
pp. 139-147
Author(s):  
Vladislav Noskevich ◽  
◽  
Natalia Fedorova ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
18Th Century ◽  
Aerial Photographs ◽  
Magnetic Studies ◽  
Geophysical Investigation ◽  
Aerial Photos ◽  
New Information ◽  
The Many ◽  
The One ◽  
Ground Penetrating

The settlements and cemeteries of the Sintashta – type (21st–18th century BC) are concentrated in the southern Trans-Urals steppe. The earliest stage of investigations was related to the decoding of aerial photos that allowed specialists to discover and identify the majority of the settlements. This report presents the results of a geophysical investigation at the Andreevskoye settlement, where we conducted micro-magnetic and ground penetrating radar (GPR) surveys. Magnetic studies have provided new information on the structure of the fortifications and the number and location of houses in the settlements during their occupancy, as well as on the many wells discovered inside the houses. Drawing on our data, a new plan of the settlement was produced, more accurate than the one prepared solely from interpretations of aerial photographs. The settlement consists of multiple layers and is characterized by a complex configuration formed from three rectangular systems of defensive structures. We obtained GPR deep sections along three profiles, indicating the ditches and dwellings of the ancient settlement under sediments and the ruins of walls. Based on these data, we conclude that the depth from the modern surface of the earth to the occupation layer in the dwellings of the ancient settlement is approximately 50–70 cm. Our results provide archaeologists with reliable data that are necessary for the selection of excavation sites.

VIII.—Faience Beads of the British Bronze Age

Archaeologia ◽  
1936 ◽  
Vol 85 ◽  
pp. 203-252 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. C. Beck ◽  
J. F. S. Stone
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
The Absolute ◽  
The Many ◽  
The Bronze Age

Of the many objects of the Bronze Age which have defied decay in these Islands, few can rank in interest and importance with a number of small coloured beads which have been found associated with barrow burials and in other contexts. So well known are they, that it seems almost needless to add that their importance lies in the possibility of using them as datum points in the Absolute Chronology of this period. The question of their origin is thus one of extreme importance and one which we propose here to examine.

Potboilers Reheated

2010 ◽  
Vol 76 ◽  
pp. 357-366 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mike Seager Thomas
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
The Other ◽  
The South ◽  
Southern England ◽  
Contextual Associations ◽  
The One ◽  
Traditional Approaches

Finds of heated stone from prehistoric sites in England were for many years interpreted as ‘potboilers’, a view recommended for the south-east of the country in particular by the finding of pots – invariably of later Bronze Age date – filled with them. When exposed to stress, stone behaves in a predictable way. A comparison of stones from apparently in situ archaeological potboilings with those produced during experimental potboilings supports the evidence of earlier work on pottery (Woods 1984) that they were nothing of the sort, the wider contextual associations of the archaeological finds suggesting instead that they comprise votive deposits. At the end of their functional life, heated stones acquired a symbolic charge, and were placed in pots in funerary contexts. This realisation both supports and qualifies Brück's recent post-modern interpretation of deposits of heated stones from later Bronze Age sites in southern England, reminding us on the one hand of the need to understand our data in terms its of its own nature – in this case geological and sedimentological – as well as its wider archaeological context, and on the other of the importance of non-traditional approaches to these. A number of other possible explanations for heated stones found in Bronze Age pots are reviewed and – for the time being – discarded.

The Political Machine in the Late Bronze Age

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam T. Smith
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
The Political ◽  
Late Bronze Age ◽  
South Caucasus ◽  
Joint Operation ◽  
Political Machine ◽  
Charismatic Authority ◽  
The Many ◽  
The One ◽  
Active Commitment

In the Late Bronze Age, the polities in the South Caucasus developed a new assemblage directed toward transforming charismatic authority into formal sovereignty. This chapter examines the assembling of this political machine, which drew the civilization and war machines into an extensive apparatus of rule, one that resolved the paradox at the heart of the joint operation of both. This novel political machine did not supersede the war and civilization machines. Rather, the political machine cloaked their contradictions, allowing the relation of the one to the many to persist as a “mystery” of sovereignty. The political machine not only provided the instruments of judicial ordering and bureaucratic regulation but it also transformed the polity itself into an object of devotion, securing not simply the surrender of subjects but their active commitment to the reproduction of sovereignty.

The War Machine in the Middle Bronze Age

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam T. Smith
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Political Violence ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Mortuary Ritual ◽  
Material Resources ◽  
War Machine ◽  
Middle Bronze Age ◽  
The Many ◽  
The One ◽  
Social Orders

This chapter examines the breakdown and redevelopment of the civilization machine during the Middle Bronze Age alongside a fearsome new assemblage that is best described as a “war machine.” The operation of the war machine entailed not only the reproduction of political violence but also the dissection of social orders, severing a sovereign body from the bodies of subjects—those who command from those who obey. Through the conspicuous consumption of Middle Bonze Age mortuary ritual, the war machine reproduced the terms on which social order was predicated—charisma, violence, and distinction. However, built into the conjoined operations of the civilization and war machines was a contradiction. As the one (the erstwhile sovereign) pulled away from the many (the constituted public), demands upon material resources exceeded capacities. Territorial fragmentation and military stalemate—consequences of the war machine's proliferation—threatened to undermine the workings of the civilization machine, dissecting a previously expansive public into smaller and smaller segments. As a result, the central principle of charismatic authority was put at risk insofar as political power flowed from the provision of needs through conflicts successfully waged.

scholarly journals Radiocarbon Evidence from the Middle Bronze Age Settlement At Portella (Aeolian Islands, Italy): Chronological and Archaeological Implications

Radiocarbon ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 53 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gianmarco Alberti
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Bayesian Model ◽  
Aeolian Islands ◽  
Middle Bronze Age ◽  
Absolute Dating ◽  
The Absolute ◽  
Aeolian Archipelago

This paper deals with radiocarbon determinations from the Middle Bronze Age site of Portella on the island of Salina (Aeolian Archipelago, Italy). The available14C evidence is taken into account, in a simple Bayesian model, in order to explore the issue of the absolute chronology of both the settlement and the stage of the local cultural sequence to which Portella belongs. A high date is proposed for the start of the Aeolian (and Sicilian) Middle Bronze Age: 1556–1422 cal BC (95.4% confidence), with a a most likely (modal) date of about 1450 cal BC. Further, the analysis suggests that the Portella phase is likely to have been a very short one, with a span of 0–65 yr (68.2%) or 0–131 yr (95.4%). The archaeological implications are explored. The relation of these results to the evidence of ceramic phasing is also considered. Since Aegean datable ceramic imports are documented in Aeolian/Sicilian Middle Bronze Age contexts, the connection between Portella's chronology and the absolute dating of one of the Aegean phases (namely, Late Helladic IIIA1) is also investigated.

scholarly journals CHRONOLOGY OF WESTERN ASIAN AND TRANSCAUCASIAN ARTIFACTS SIMILAR TO THE FORE-CAUCASUS BRONZE ADORNMENTS OF THE FIRST HALF OF III MILLENNIUM BC

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
А.А. Ковалев
Keyword(s):  
Precious Metals ◽  
North Caucasus ◽  
The South ◽  
South Caucasus ◽  
East European ◽  
The North ◽  
Western Asia ◽  
The Absolute

В статье приведены данные об абсолютной хронологии комплексов Передней Азии и Закавказья, содержащих аналогии предкавказским бронзовым «украшениям» перв. пол. III тыс. до н. э. Наиболее ранние из них относятся к концу раннего – началу среднего Урука: это золотые кольцевидные и дисковидные медаль­оны без орнамента. Возможно, традиция изготовления этих ритуальных по своей сути предметов могла опосредованно повлиять на формирование традиции изготовления предкавказских кольцевидных и дисковидных медальонов. В комплексах позднего куро-аракса (около 2800–2600 гг. до н. э.) в Закавказье зафиксировано появление простейших стерженьковых подвесок, что может быть объяснено влиянием северных культур, где эти подвески получили широкое распространение с рубежа IV–III тыс. до н. э. О влиянии со стороны Предкавказья говорят и находки в закавказских комплексах второй трети III тыс. до н. э. ряда уникальных предметов «степных» форм (медальоны, костяные молоточковидные булавки, выпуклые пунсонные бляхи и т. п.). С середины III тыс. в Передней Азии распространяются подобия молоточковидных булавок, стерженьковых (грибовидных) подвесок, медальонов, пунсонных блях. В царских могилах Ура и других комплексах периода РДIII, а также Аккада найдены крупные медальоны из драгоценных металлов. Эти медальоны, как и другие престижные предметы, начинают украшать имитацией перевитого шнура. Мотив шнура в тот же период характеризует беденскую культуру в Закавказье. Все это свидетельствует об усилении северного влияния, возможно, вплоть до проникновения в Переднюю Азию групп населения из Предкавказья. The article presents data on the absolute chronology of the closed complexes and sites of Western Asia and the South Caucasus containing artifacts similar to North-Caucasian bronze adornments attributed to the East-European Steppe Middle Bronze period (first half of III mill. BC). The earliest analogies belong to the final Late – beginning of the Middle Uruk: gold ring-shaped and discoid tanged medallions without ornamentation. Possibly, the tradition of making these items could indirectly influence the formation of the tradition of manufacturing the Fore-Caucasian ring-shaped and discoid tanged medallions. Excavations of late Kura-Araxes (2800–2600 BC) sites in the Transcaucasia show the appearance of the simplest mushroom-shape pendants, which indicates a northern impact. Also about the influence from the North-Caucasus speak evidence in the Transcaucasian complexes of the second third of the 3rd mill. BC a number of unique artifacts of «steppe» forms (medallions, bone hammer-shaped pins, bulging punching badges, etc.). Beginning in the middle of III mill. BC, artifacts similar of hammer-shaped pins, rod-shaped (mushroom-shaped) pendants, tanged medallions, punching badges spread in the Western Asia. Large tanged medallions made from precious metals were found in Royal graves of Ur and other complexes belonged to the EDIII and Akkad periods. These medallions and other prestigious jewelery objects were beginning to be decorated with imitation of twisted «cord». The motif of the cord in the same period characterizes the Bedeni culture in the South Caucasus. This shows an increase in northern influence, perhaps even to the penetration of groups of people from North Caucasus into Western Asia.

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